The ravens’ claws keep steady grip

on this castle for their keeping.

Winds whistle through empty squares.

Not even a shard of glass remains to rattle.

Stark on this buttress cliff

the stones look out to sea.

I thought it must have been

the isolation hospital.

Saw in my mind, islanders tucked up

sweating out the fevers and the agues

oblivious of crashing waves.

But I was wrong.

Lower down a jagged quarry crouches.

It never made much money,

but this ill-starred trade was enough

to cause a hospital to be erected.

Now raven’s wait for meat again

perhaps remembering

the heady and dramatic days

when labouring men were carrion.